10 Head-Meltingly Awesome Neo-Psych Bands You Should Know

One of the welcome artistic developments of the 21st century has been the resurgence of psychedelic music. We don’t mean the kind of wet, holding-hands-and-gently-humming-at-the-flowers variety — we’re talking about bands whose music immerses you completely, whether it’s because they’re given to pile-driving drum patterns and guitar freakouts, or because they make the sort of blissed-out drone sounds to which you can turn on, tune in, and drop out to your heart’s content. With neo-psych doyenne Jesse Sykes on the bill for a recent installment of the Sailor Jerry’s Presents concert series, we realized that she most definitely features on the roster of awesome neo-psych acts everyone should know. Click through for a bunch of similarly worthy suggestions, then be sure to check out more can’t-miss upcoming shows from Sailor Jerry’s Presents.

Jesse Sykes

Sykes’ music started out as gentle, folk-influenced balladry, but it’s been getting heavier as the years go by, a trend that was cemented with her contribution to the 2006 Sunn 0)))/Boris collaboration album Altar (which is pretty much as heavy as heavy gets). Sykes and her band the Sweet Hereafter’s latest record, Marble Son, walks the line between the two poles of her sound deftly, balancing the driving beats and guitar wig-outs of tracks like “Hushed by Devotion” with moments of acoustic reflection.